Borrego leads dark-sky movement

The summertime Milky Way shines brightly over Southern California’s Anza-Borrego Desert. In the foreground are silhouettes of wild horses, two of dozens of massive sculptures of animals that once dominated the Borrego Valley. During this 13-second exposure, a bright meteor shot across the sky and added even more drama to the scene. The glow spilling over the mountains to the southwest is light pollution from the San Diego metropolitan area, some 30-50 miles away. Photo by Dennis Mammana.

Borrego Springs is one of only a handful of official Dark Sky Communities in the world — so designated in 2009. To qualify, a community must “show exceptional dedication to the preservation of the night sky through the implementation and enforcement of quality lighting codes, dark sky education, and citizen support of dark skies,” the group says.

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Only 25 streetlights are in downtown Borrego Springs and none in the residential areas. There also aren’t any fast-food restaurants, big-box stores, and the nearest traffic light is 50 miles away.

The International Dark-Sky Association began 23 years ago with an emphasis on the stars. It was the creation of two astronomers who saw the degradation of the night sky and tried to do something about it.

“Their initial focus was to get cities and towns to adopt lighting ordinances to put some sort of controls on the type of lighting that would be installed outside,” Parks said.

That remains the association’s main goal, but the reasons for its existence have broadened to nothing less than the effects wasted night light have on all living things.

“It’s so much more now,” said Scott Kardel, who spent much of the last decade as the spokesman for the Palomar Observatory but this summer became public affairs director for the Dark-Sky Association, which has only about a dozen full-time employees but thousands of members and donors. “It’s something I’m passionate about and believe in strongly.”

Parks said the primary idea is that outdoor lighting needs to be done correctly so it focuses light on the ground, and not send needless light into the sky.

Billions of dollars can be saved worldwide in energy costs with proper lighting, Parks maintains. “Wasted light is not a luxury we can afford.”

The association also believes there are many ecological and health implications of a bright night sky.

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“When you start looking at the impact of light pollution, it’s more than how it affects humans,” Parks said. “It’s how it affects whole species.”

Just how artificial night light affects the world around us is an underresearched area, something the association is trying to change. But studies that have been done show it’s serious.

“What we’re seeing is, Circadian disruption is something that affects humans as well as plants. When you change the normal 12 hours of day and 12 hours of night it has profound effects. We’re not really sure of all the effects, but we’re sure some of them are causing human health issues, as well as affecting simple things.”

“You can see them under the lights at night. They die by the thousands. If you consider we have 20 million streetlights in the United States alone ... if you’re killing off thousands of insects every night at each light, you’re talking about significantly damaging the food supply for birds, bats and whatever. Not a lot of people get concerned about killing insects, but when you start talking about the food-chain implications, it’s profound.”

The association has just completed a seven-year project of creating a template for cities and counties around the U.S. to use as a model for street lighting.

The association is constantly receiving calls from governments and developers wanting to research how better to light their neighborhoods, towns, parks and new developments.

“A lot of people in the planning community are starting to rethink this,” Parks said. “That’s the first step because it’s a slow process.”